


It's Like the Pied Piper (Only It's a Little Bit More Like a Cult)

by queenofhell_proserpina



Series: Cultverse [1]
Category: Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cults, Brainwashing, Codependency, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-19 08:54:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2382431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofhell_proserpina/pseuds/queenofhell_proserpina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I love Patty Hearst. I love the 'Stockholm Effect.' "</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Like the Pied Piper (Only It's a Little Bit More Like a Cult)

10/8/2004 - 1:49 AM EST  
God, I love victim culture.  
I love Jeffrey Dahmer being a victim of society.  
I love Patty Hearst. I love the “Stockholm Effect”.  
The great victims of our culture. Aren’t we all?  
\--Pete Wentz

1

Pete and I attacked the lost Astoria  
with promise and precision and a mess of youthful innocence  
\--Fall Out Boy // Saturday

Everybody knows about the first time Patrick met Pete. It has been immortalized in song and story—unreleased song and half-false magazine stories, at least—but Patrick still thinks of it as an experience that’s a little bit private. Even though Joe was there, even though his mom was humming in the kitchen, it was still just the two of them, for a second, there in his doorway.

Argyle and tattoos. Eyeliner and glasses. The two of them are a dichotomy, always have been, always will be. Pete tells him that that’s what makes them work. “God and the devil, Patrick. You keep me pure, and me…I drag you down into the depths, burn the sickness out of your eyes.”

That first time, though, it was just for a moment, and then it was just a grinning Joe and that kid from Arma in front of him, Pete, also grinning, maybe a little bit sinister but basically okay looking. Patrick had let them in and Joe had introduced them and Pete had mocked his clothing choices, and yeah, that’s the story, but that’s not all of it.

The real story starts when they’re on tour that first week, and Pete holds him down in the back of the van, knees on his chest, hands on his wrists, cock in his mouth, and whispers lyrics into Patrick’s ear while Joe watches intently and Andy in the driver’s seat hums along to a snatch of something on the radio, his voice happy and light in the background as though Patrick isn’t breaking in the back.

2

You know that I could crush you with my voice  
\--Fall Out Boy // The Pros and Cons of Breathing

All of that came later though. At first it was just the three of them, sitting around in Patrick’s basement while he felt awkward, nervous, definitely not cool enough for Pete with his twitchy fingers and Joe’s “fuck it” grin. But having music in his hands always makes everything twenty percent more real for Patrick, so when he drums they’re all even, pretty much. Pete’s voice is like skinned knees on pavement, and it hurts Patrick’s ears a little so he covers it with his own until Pete’s voice fades away.

It takes him a second to realize that it isn’t just his perception—Pete has stopped singing, stopped playing, stopped moving even, just staring at Patrick as he finishes the chorus. Pete’s first words aren’t even to Patrick, though; he turns to Joe and says with what sounds like genuine anger, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me he could sing like that?”

And that’s the first time Patrick thinks, what the fuck, although far from the last, because Joe is freezing up, his hands still clutching the neck of his guitar as he says, “I’m sorry, Pete. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” And he sounds really, genuinely sorry, and sort of scared, as though this is something serious instead of just three boys fucking around in a basement. Pete clenches his fists, and then smiles, sun through clouds, like flicking a switch. “Its okay,” he tells Joe graciously. “You didn’t know.”

Patrick is just sitting frozen, awkward again, behind his drum kit, unsure. At this point he’s wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into, because he wants to ask these guys to just leave now, because they’re sort of freaking him out, but, true to his fifteen-year-old boy-nature, he wants to see what happens next with car wreck fascination.

What happens next is, Pete turns to him and says, “You play guitar, right?” and his eyes are so dark, almost all pupil, and Patrick nods, slowly. “Then play me something,” Pete says, leaning back grinning casual against the couch. “And sing. I want to hear what else you can do.”

So Patrick plays, and he sings, and eventually Joe and Pete pick up their guitars and their chords blend with his so, so perfectly that he’s hooked. He’s in for almost anything now.

Music is always the way to hook Patrick, something that Pete figures out instantly and exploits daily. Mostly, Patrick doesn’t mind.

3

“It would be like, I would write something and he would be like, ‘you should change this word...you should change both these words...you know what? You should change this sentence...’ and I was like ‘JUST GIMME YOUR WORDS! JUST GIVE 'EM TO ME!’ It would be basically like ‘I like your melody, I don't that song, I don't like what it's about, I don't like this,’ and I'm like ‘that's cool, you're better at writing than me anyway. Just GIMME THE FRIGGING LYRICS!’”  
\--Patrick Stump

The only time he does mind is when Pete keeps his words from Patrick. This happened more in the early days than it does now, but it still happens on occasion, Pete holding a sheaf of printed pages just above his head with a teasing smile. “Careful, you’ll rip them,” he always hisses, mock-scared, when Patrick tries to reach for them, and even though Patrick knows that they are saved on a hard drive and a floppy and floating on the internet, Pete’s words are still too precious to spoil, so he always gives in.

“What do you want,” he’ll say suspiciously, every time, because Pete always wants something. And Pete will grin.

Usually it’s something simple. Kissmetouchmesuckmeletmefuckyou, just give me attention attention attention. Pete thrives on it, and when the cameras aren’t on, when there are no acolytes around, when they’re in a hotel or Pete’s house or Patrick’s apartment, Patrick is his methadone. “Its different from you,” Pete will whisper as Patrick kisses his neck, licks his cock, gives him what he needs. “Its more real. You’re more mine.” And Patrick is glad to be his, glad to be the one who can do this for him, make him be still and quiet; glad to be the one Pete deems important enough to take his words and marry them with his music until they’re one. With Pete, its easy to get lost inside the crowd of admirers—even on tour he has his Sidekick, his journals, the fans, the journalists, the lost boys and girls he picks up and sends away changed. Patrick knows he’s special, but it’s nice to be reminded sometimes.

Once he told Patrick to destroy the song he’d been working on, the one whose melody had been licking the inside of his head for months, keeping him isolated in his headphones while Pete stared resentfully from behind his phone. Patrick had pleaded, tried to bargain, but there’s no bargaining with Pete, so eventually he deleted it from GarageBand, flushed the sheet music, watched the notes drop from his fingers like tears. Pete just dropped his words onto the counter in front of Patrick and then hugged him quick, nuzzling against his skull. “It’s all still up here,” he said softly. “You can create it all over again, and it’ll be just as exciting as the first time you did it.” And Pete sounded excited, but he didn’t touch Patrick again, just walked towards the door.

“But why?” Patrick asked. It wasn’t a word he used much these days, and it felt rusty on his tongue.

Pete paused in the doorway, silent, still, “Sometimes you have to destroy something to build it up new again,” he said finally, voice distant.

He left, and Patrick built the song up again, from scratch, weaving Pete’s words into his melodies. Pete was right; the wreckage sounded better than the original.

4  
put your hand between  
an aching head and an aching world  
we'll make them so jealous  
we'll make them hate us  
\--Fall Out Boy // It’s Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine. I Am Thinking It Must Be Love.

After a week in the van, rest stops only with Pete’s arm around him, always touching him, even onstage it’s a slide of lips over his cheek or a nudge of his bass against Patrick’s spine, Patrick breaks. “Why?” he keeps saying. “Why? Why?” These aren’t Pete’s words, but they’re spilling out of him and he can’t stop them.

Pete just hushes him, nuzzles up close, an affectionate arm curved around the top of Patrick’s head on the van floor, fingers still curved inside Patrick’s ass. “Because you need to understand me,” he says quietly. “You’re my voice, Patrick. You’re gonna turn my chaos into order, you’re gonna turn it all around. You need to know what the inside of my head looks like to read it.”

“I already do,” Patrick says, voice verging on hysterical.

“No,” Pete replies. “Not yet. This first set of songs, they’re just the prologue. The novel is still inside my head, waiting for you to be ready.” And he says with so much trust and hope that all Patrick wants in the world, really, is to be ready.

5

“I’m personally very affected and attracted to people who are a little bit off, confused, not figured out …There’s something about that which is really attractive to me.”  
\--Pete Wentz

Even when Pete was still technically with Arma, even when they were just playing tiny shows in clubs around Chicago, Patrick had always noticed the way Pete talked to people: intensely, close, with his mouth next to their ear and a hand on their shoulder, fingers just barely stroking their neck. Pete is extremely physical—when he talks to Patrick, he always has a hand on his arm or his shoulder, fingers tapping out a beat when he gets excited—and at first it had freaked Patrick out a little bit, because he’d never had someone who was almost a complete stranger touch him so much so fast. Joe had just rolled his eyes, though. “Calm down, dude. Don’t worry about it. He’s not going to, like, pull you into his unpainted van and molest you, okay? He just likes to touch people.”

(Months later, Patrick will think about that statement and wonder if Joe knew in advance what Pete had planned for him. Years later, Joe will confirm that yes, he did know, “but Patrick, it was for the best, right? It was the only way that we could show you.” Joe had never required any time in the back of the van—he was one of those who just got it, right away, what Pete had to say. Sometimes Patrick is jealous of Joe for that; sometimes he thinks that Joe should be jealous of him.)

Anyway, Pete talks to people at shows like he’s about to save their life. For some of them, he knows, Pete has saved their life; they come to him with scars and drug habits and go away with belief. Patrick can see it in their eyes, sometimes, when they walk away from Pete—those kids have just gained something to live for. Sometimes, if he sees something special in them, they go home with him, Pete’s arm around the skinny waist or slumped shoulders of a kid who can’t be more than fifteen, if that. Patrick will see them at shows later, a new light in their eyes, which are fixed on Pete even as he kisses Patrick on the cheek during the show, even as he leaves the gig with his arm around the waist of another skinny scene kid.

When he asks Joe what Pete says to those kids, because around him Pete mostly talks about chords and toilet humor and TV shows he’s watched, Joe just looks at him and says, “I don’t know. I mean, based on what he said to me when we met, I can guess, but…look, it’s not something I can put into words, okay? That’s Pete’s thing. Lets just say that Pete has a way of looking at the world. He has a message.”

Patrick wants to point out that thus far, Pete’s message pretty much seems to be, “girls suck, so obsess over them,” but Joe has that Pete look in his eyes. That Pete look is how Patrick thinks of it when people get overly intense about Pete, who so far as Patrick can see so far isn’t anything too special; overly energetic, a little depressed sometimes, intelligent and articulate, sure, but he hasn’t really said anything worth taking notes on yet.

(Later, when they’re leaving for their first real tour, Patrick’s first time away from the watchful eyes of his parents, Pete puts his hand on Patrick’s shoulder as he’s getting into the van, fingers on his neck, like he does with those other kids, the ones who aren’t Patrick. “You ready, kid?” he breathes into Patrick’s ear, and Pete has that Pete look in his eyes, intense, like he’s about to save Patrick’s life. Patrick just nods, because he thinks Pete’s asking about the tour, is he ready for the tour, so he nods and Pete shoves him into the van. Patrick ends up on his hands and knees, confused, next to their bags and guitars, and Pete gives him a shark smile, climbing inside, Joe right behind him. The door slides shut. In the front, Andy turns on the radio.)

6

And isn’t this exactly where you’d like me?  
I’m exactly where you’d like me, you know,  
Praying for love in a lap dance  
And paying in naiveté.  
\--Panic! At The Disco // But Its Better if You Do

The only time Patrick ever has doubts is when he meets Ryan Ross. The kid looks so delicate, so young, even younger than most of the kids Pete picks up. Back when he first met Pete, before Pete filled him with his words, Patrick looked like this too--so new, so stripped-down to clean skin and big eyes, but its different to see it on someone else. It makes him wonder what Pete will fill Ryan with. Well, beyond the obvious.

Still, when he takes Pete aside to talk to him, he can't think of anything to say. Its not like Ryan is different from any of the others--he doesn't even know anything about Ryan, except that he has a fucked-up family situation and reads way too much Chuck Palahniuk, which, yeah, makes him pretty much exactly the same as all of the others. But Pete has a direct pipeline to his brain and always has the right things to say. "Don't worry, Patrick," with that smile, with that hand on the place where Patrick's neck meets his shoulder, the place that always makes Patrick bow his head to Pete like a penitent. "I know what I'm doing here. I always know what I'm doing."

Which Patrick knows isn't true, but he lets it go anyway. Lets Pete go, and even goes into Pete's room sometime later on in the week. Pete is sitting on the bed, shirtless, sweating, and Ryan is completely naked on the bed. He's been crying, Patrick can tell; his eyes are huge and red-rimmed, wet, but they also have another look Patrick can recognize. He's hit understanding already; the 'oh god, oh god, what’s happening to me, where am I, what are you saying, Pete' part has passed and from then on its like you're living in a bruised world. Everything hurts, but you can see it all, feel it all, perfectly.

Patrick's actually a little jealous. It took at least two weeks in the back of the van, Pete whispering to him and touching him and letting him sleep only in ten-minute increments to get him to that point.

Pete looks up at him and laughs a little, voice raw. "Yeah, I know," he says at the look on Patrick's face. "His lyrics are gonna be so much better now. God, I can't wait till they start recording."

"Yeah," Patrick says. He sits down on the end of the bed, next to Pete, nudging Ryan's foot to the side.

"Patrick," Pete says. He hooks an arm around Patrick's shoulders, nudging Patrick's ear with his stubbled jaw, then breathing, "They'll be great. But they won't be us, will they? Nobody can ever be us." And Patrick sighs, melting into the warmth of Pete's body.

7

Decaydance, its, it’s a movement. More than a record label, it’s a movement.  
\--Travis McCoy

All of them knew that eventually Fall Out Boy wouldn’t be enough for Pete. “I want this to be a culture,” he tells the journalists. “You're going to eat, sleep and breathe it. I want it to be a way you think about the world,” and by “it” he means “me,” him, the message. So now there’s Decaydance and Clandestine and the million other projects that Pete has going on. Now Pete doesn’t just have the kids he talks to at shows, the kids he brings back with him from shows, he has Travis and William and Greta and new kids, other kids, he’s meeting them all the time and shaping them, shaping their music, and Patrick helps.

“It’s getting bigger,” Patrick notes to Pete one night, over the phone. He’s producing for Gym Class Heroes and it feels a little strange, to be so immersed in someone else’s music.

“It was always meant to be big,” Pete says lazily. He’s in bed, Patrick knows, jerking off to Patrick’s voice, and Patrick can picture Pete’s fingers circling the tattoo on his stomach, the soft skin there. “And it’s only going to get bigger. I can only be so many places at once, so it’s good to have the others out there for me, spreading the message.”

Patrick sees Travis one day after a show, his arm around the shoulder of some kid, bringing fingers to his mouth in the universal sign for “come smoke up with me.” When they return, Travis is grinning and so is the kid, both of their eyes dilated and they both have that Pete look. Patrick didn’t know before that someone besides Pete could put that look into someone else’s eyes, but apparently Pete is like a virus: he passes from person to person, and they pass him on to other people, and it just keeps spreading.

8  
i promise you that you will love the new cobra starship record … it will change your insides.  
\--Pete Wentz

Gabe is different. When Patrick meets Gabe, he doesn’t have that Pete look in his eyes, he has something else. That Gabe look, Patrick supposes.

The first time Gabe meets Patrick, he immediately throws an arm over Patrick’s shoulder and starts chatting casually about Pete and “seeing the cobra” and keeping kids in his basement. “Pete is the first guy I’ve ever met who’s like me,” he confides, eyes shining. “He gets it. He knows what it takes to get your message out, and he’s willing to go the distance. I can respect that. I enjoy the results of his work,” Gabe says slowly, staring into Patrick’s eyes. His fingers flutter on Patrick’s pulse point, and Patrick swallows. Gabe grins.

Across the room, Patrick can see Pete glance over at them, notice the contact, and narrow his eyes. Gabe notices Pete’s attention and just presses closer, against Patrick, and Pete breaks off his conversation to head towards them.

Patrick can already tell that Gabe is going to be trouble. Usually if someone else talks to Patrick, touches him, Pete doesn’t have a problem with it. “Fuck whoever you want,” he breathes in Patrick’s ear at parties. “I’m inside of your head. That’s what fucking matters,” and Pete is right.

But right now Patrick has Gabe’s hypnotic voice buzzing inside his ear, his lean hips pressed against Patrick’s side, and while he’s not Pete, he’s something else. He’s got a message, too.

Patrick goes home with Pete that night, but he still remembers Gabe saying, “I enjoy the results of his work,” looking right at Patrick like he’s a poem or a painting, something Pete put together for Gabe to tear apart.

9

“I was isolating myself further and further … And the more I isolated myself, the more isolated I'd feel. I wasn't sleeping. I just wanted my head to shut off, like, I just wanted to completely stop thinking about anything at all … I felt like I was being Pete Wentz for everybody else, and I didn't have Pete Wentz to turn to."  
\--Pete Wentz

December 6 2005  
everyone you idolize wakes up scared to be themselves sometimes.  
\--Pete Wentz

Pete’s always had problems with introspection, depression, but he always turns it into art and then its okay again. Its different when he locks himself in his room, though—Patrick doesn’t even hear the clatter of his keyboards. Occasionally Pete will shove some handwritten lyrics under his door, but its all just endlessly repeating phrases about emptiness and hearing voices and the litany of pills that he’s taking every day, and they’re not lyrics. They’re not anything; they don’t come together to make any sort of sense, and usually even Pete’s craziest rants yield a line, a thought, some sort of rationale behind them. These…don’t.

And then he doesn’t come to Europe.

And then the next thing they know, Pete’s taken a handful of pills in the parking lot of a Best Buy.

When they hear the news, Joe just looks heartbroken and Andy gets quiet and grim. Patrick can’t help but think that its because of him, because he couldn’t get the music right and Pete couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand facing his mistake in choosing someone who wasn’t good enough for his words.

When they finally see him again, there’s a fight. Joe still looks terrified to see Pete like this, pale and tired-looking, the circles under his eyes bigger than ever, and Patrick hangs back, awkward, still afraid that it’s his fault, his lack. Andy, though, is livid and wants everyone to know it.

“If you can’t even handle your own shit, then why are you leading us, man?” he yells. “We put our fucking trust in you, Pete. If you can’t handle it, you have to fucking tell us, so we can do something about it. Don’t just go hide out in your own head. That’s so fucking weak, man, so weak. I never expected this shit from you, of all people. ”

“I’m fucking sorry, all right?” Pete yells back. I just wanted it to be calm inside my fucking head, all right? For once, I just wanted it to be fucking quiet. Its always loud in here, too fucking loud and even paper can’t bleed all of it out of me.”

“That’s what you have Patrick for,” Andy says, and stalks out of the room. Joe slinks out too, and later the three of them, Pete and Andy and Joe, hug and talk and make up, but for that second it almost looks like the end of the band.

Patrick, though, stays. “He’s right, you know,” he says, moving closer to Pete, kneeling next to the bed Pete is sitting on. “That’s what you have me for.” Pete just down at him through his eyelashes, eyes like old coffee, worn-out. He’s still on meds, depression, anxiety, strictly regulated, and he seems different than usual. Less like Pete, more like a normal tired twenty-five year old.

“Patrick, that’s not all you are,” he says. “I shouldn’t have…” He puts his hand on Patrick’s face, his lips, fingertips stroking the shape so gently. “I shouldn’t have ever made you think that you were. I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry.” And then he’s burying his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking, and Patrick puts his arms around him, making soothing noises in his ear.

“I want to be that for you,” he reassures Pete. “I want to be.” Its what he’s been since he was fifteen years old, the receptacle for Pete’s words, the one who makes it better for him, and if he isn’t that, then he doesn’t know what he is anymore.

Not long after that, Pete goes off the meds and is back to his old self, only now when he’s too full of words to get them all out on paper, he’ll whisper them in Patrick’s ear, holding his wrists down until they’re bruised, fucking him until he’s sore, filling Patrick with his words until he’s Pete’s again, just like the first time.

10

We will own your thoughts  
We'll own the song stuck in your head  
We'll leave you kicking and screaming  
So you can thank us in the end  
\--Fall Out Boy // Dance, Dance Demo

After Pete’s breakdown, the words come even faster and stronger and smoother than they had before, since they all go directly into Patrick’s brain and then out onto paper, twisting around the melodies in his head and coming out whole, complete. They change things here and there, because, as Pete says, “being too explicit with your plans just freaks people out. You have to slip it to them like a roofie at a cocktail party.”

So they change one of the verses in “Dance, Dance” and then the album explodes. Patrick wonders what would have happened if they’d left the old verse in.

11

When I first met Gabe, it was a very transient period of my life. The second I met him I felt we were connected in some way, I immediately saw him as a very special unique person. I even said to my friend Farrah ten minutes after I met him "my life is changing in some way because of that guy!"… Since the day I met him, I believed in him, his music, and his dreams, and was just so excited to be a part of this.  
\--Elisa Schwartz

Patrick always figured that their movement was a benign one. No one ever gets hurt more than bruises in the pit or marks from Pete’s teeth, and they go away with something good, something real, so it all evens out in the end. It’s in the plus column, actually.

There’s a period of time when Pete is locked onto his cell with Gabe from Starship. Gabe, who Patrick always knew was going to be a problem. Patrick never catches more than snatches of conversation, but what he hears is, “Its too soon—everyone knows that you two are having problems, it’d be too obvious if you take care of her now,” and “You have to wait—you have to fucking wait; why do you think Chris is still around?” and “Don’t, Gabe. Just don’t.”

A week later, Cobra Starship fires their keytar player. A month after that, she’s found dead in a club outside of L.A., bruises ringing her neck.

Again, Patrick only hears snatches of conversation.

Pete, backstage when Patrick returns from getting water: “I mean, fuck—its one thing if its some scene kid turns up dead in a gutter, but this is a fucking PR nightmare.”

Andy, behind the same door: “The thing is, its too fucking close to that one girl we had to take care of in Indiana? Remember, the one with red hair who started yelling about statutory rape?”

Joe, with them: “Wasn’t that in Idaho?”

Pete: “No, that was that other kid. Black hair, tattoos, said I was a fucking psycho, remember?”

Andy: “Yeah, that was definitely in Idaho.”

Pete: “Whatever. The point is, we have to decide what to do about the Gabe situation. I mean, I want to think that Travis and William will back me on this one, but…”

Andy: “They seem pretty close to Gabe these days, yeah.”

Pete: “Right. And Gabe’s got his own thing going on these days. The fucking cobra. I just don’t understand that shit at all, but they seem to.”

Joe: “Maybe we could just grab them both for a couple of days and you could…”

Pete: “No, no. If Gabe thinks I’m challenging him… I mean, if it comes to that, then yeah. But I’d rather it didn’t.”

Joe: “Yeah, okay. What about Patrick? He’s been around those guys a lot; he fucking put Gym Class’s album together for them. And Gabe’s not gonna see him as a threat. I mean…he’s Patrick.”

Pete: A pause. Then: “No. I don’t want Patrick involved in this.”

Patrick edges away from the door and pretends he didn’t hear anything.

Pete makes sad remarks to the press about Elisa’s unfortunate death, her hanging around the wrong people, her desperation for fame. He spends a few days with Cobra Starship instead of his family while Fall Out Boy have a break in the tour, and comes back with bruises on his hips. “We’ve come to an understanding,” is all he says, and Patrick still doesn’t ask.

After a few months, the questions about Elisa’s unfortunate death fade away. Turns out she’s just like some scene kid in a gutter after all; everyone forgets. Even Patrick.

12

We only want to sing you to sleep through your bedroom speakers.  
\--Fall Out Boy // Don’t You Know Who I Think I Am?

There are times when Patrick wonders if there really is a deeper message; something worth dying for; something worth killing for. If there’s really something else there behind the broken heart lyrics and the hair dye, the late night stream-of-consciousness and the red carpet flashes and the never-ending drama. He wonders if everything that they’ve created is just a product of Pete’s charisma and his never-ending need for attention, validation; a need that can never be satisfied and will just grow and grow until it explodes like a pipe bomb.

Sometimes Pete will shove a sheaf of lyrics into his bunk, and Patrick will read them and think that they are the message; a way of seeing the world, a twist in vision that Pete just wants to share. He’ll watch the kids in the audience sing along to Pete’s words, to Patrick’s music, and he’ll know that they’ve received it loud and clear—they’ve found someone to enunciate the bruises in their head, and they’re grateful. He’ll watch some kid stumble out of Pete’s bunk in the morning, eyes glowing, fifteensixteenseventeen and their life is changed now, forever, and Patrick will think, this is enough.

And sometimes Pete will come to him with that look in his eye, that Pete look, and Patrick knows that they’re only at the beginning. The message is still in Pete’s head, waiting for Patrick to be ready.

And all Patrick wants in the world, really, is to be ready.

Jan 24 2006  
The only thing I can admit is this is no masterplan. I'm trying to figure it out.  
\--Pete Wentz

So far from the genuine becoming.  
\--Fall Out Boy // Carpal Tunnel of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Attribution of Quotes (yep, they're all real)
> 
> Title quote/intro quote Pete’s defunct Fueled By Ramen Journal 3/14/2006 - 2:19 AM EST  
> Section 3: [here](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/chartblog/2007/01/fall_out_boy_your_questions_an_1.html)  
> Section 5: link broken - I went to Google, and found two sources for this quote: a tumblr post without a citation, and this fic. Which was a strange experience.  
> Section 7: Travis quote from [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNQfa5dPQ7o\)), Pete quote about eating, sleeping, and breathing FOB from [here](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-fall-out-boy-went-from-heartbreak-to-stardom-20060309)  
> Section 8: [here](http://damnyouwentz.livejournal.com/343987.html?nojs=1%22)  
> Section 9: a) [here](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-fall-out-boy-went-from-heartbreak-to-stardom-20060309) b) Pete’s defunct FOBrock journal  
> Section 11: [here](http://absolutepunk.net/printthread.php?t=206650)  
> Section 12: Pete’s defunct FOBrock journal  
> All lyrics taken from [here](http://www.plyrics.com/f/falloutboy.html), including the inaccurate lyrics to Carpal Tunnel, which were posted as heard prior to the album release. But I think they work better.
> 
> And of course, props to [flesh mechanic: not an au](http://doyourthing.org/lise/pop/cult/index.htm) by kel and lise.


End file.
